Parashat Chayei Sarah, Genesis 23:1-25:18

Being separate, different, an outsider appears to be a necessary experience in becoming a biblical leader.

Like many of you, I am often amused and frustrated by the fact that I can't remember simple tasks I have set out for myself recently, yet have no problem recalling the oddest things from years past. At the moment, I am chuckling at the memory of a cartoon I saw in the New Yorker magazine over a decade ago. In it, three pigeons are on a ledge, and one is saying to the other two: "location, location, location." We are all familiar with this cliché that stresses what is considered the most important factor in determining where to live.

Location was important in Lech Lecha, which we read a couple of weeks ago. In that instance, it was the unknown location whereto God would lead Abraham. Location was also important last week in Vayera, when God directed Abraham toward a mountain that would be revealed to Abraham as the place upon which to offer his son. This week, location plays a different role because it is Abraham, not God, choosing the site. Chayei Sarah, "the life of Sarah," begins with the news of her death. Abraham sets out to find a burial place for her and enters into elaborate negotiations with the Hittites who control the land of Canaan. As part of his negotiations, he says "I am a resident alien among you" (Genesis 23:4). The Hebrew term is ger ve-toshav, ger meaning stranger and toshav meaning resident. Legally, Abraham was unable to own land.

Ger ve-toshav sounds like a contradiction in terms, since how can one be both a stranger and a resident. However, ibn Ezra explains that the Hebrew letter vav, representing the word "and," makes this a technical term: a resident-alien. This truly encompasses Abraham's status. He lives among the people in Canaan, but he is not one of them. Ramban described it quite accurately:

Now Abraham said to the children of Heth: "I am a stranger from another land and have not inherited a burial ground in this land from my ancestors. Now I am a sojourner with you since I have desired to dwell in this land. Therefore, give me a burying-place for an everlasting possession just as one of you."

(translation Rabbi Charles Chevel, Shiloh Publishing House)

Abraham is the ancient equivalent of the immigrant. More accurately, he can be viewed as the successful immigrant. Abraham in his journeys has been blessed by God materially as well as spiritually. He is a wealthy man. I imagine that he looked no different from the people in whose midst he lived and thrived. In acquiring a burial place, he achieves permanence, though not a sense of belonging. Abraham was different, indeed was meant to be different, and would always be an outsider. In modern terms he would be described as the "other."

Chayei Sarah is peopled with outsiders, as is the entire book of Genesis. These are the folks who are either considered powerless or who are silent. These are the women, the servants; even the two sons of Abraham fulfill this role. But it is most surprising that Abraham verbalizes the precariousness of his situation by describing himself as an "other," a stranger and resident. This most successful individual, blessed by God is marginalized.

The sensitivity to the plight of the other is a crucial lesson of the Torah. How often are we instructed to remember the stranger, grouped with the widowed and the orphaned as being in special need of communal protection? How many times are we exhorted to act justly because we were strangers in the land of Egypt?

Being separate, different, an outsider appears to be a necessary experience in becoming a biblical leader. Abraham had to leave his homeland; Jacob will have to do the same. In the generation between Abraham and Jacob it will be Rebekah who is the driving force in maintaining the covenant. She too, was an "immigrant." The most influential outsiders will be Joseph and Moses, the former integrating into Egyptian society, the latter begins life assimilated and later recovers his roots.

The balancing act of ger ve-toshav has been our lot throughout history. In Europe there were a number of famous Court Jews, who served at the whim of the ruler and for his benefit, but were also able to serve the Jewish community.

Even the Haskalah (enlightenment) movement of the 18th century and its ensuing emancipation, while allowing Jews to become citizens and not mere residents, did not fully do away with the "otherness," the sense of being a stranger.

Abraham's acquisition of the Cave of Machpelah symbolizes permanence but does not represent a sense of belonging. Isaac, perhaps because he is the second generation, seems to have this sense. And Isaac went out walking in the field toward evening (Genesis 24:63). Tradition tells us that Isaac was meditating or praying. In next week's parashah, we read that even when there is a famine in the land, Isaac is instructed to stay put. He is also very successful: Isaac sowed in that land and reaped a hundredfold the same year (Genesis 26:12). In fact he is so successful that the other inhabitants of the area get jealous.

Despite his years in the land and his comfort with the surroundings, despite his wealth, Isaac remains the outsider, the "other," a ger ve-toshav. Like father, like son. They are spiritual immigrants, and we are their descendants.

Tradition holds that Abraham underwent ten tests of faith, culminating in the akedah. One ancient source, the Book of Jubilees, offers an alternative view, teaching that the last test is the purchase of the Cave of Machpelah.

If the offering of Isaac was indeed Abraham's last test, then it should have been followed by a period of bliss unalloyed. Instead, it is followed by the mention of Sarah's death (Genesis 23:1-2) and, subsequent to that event, a curious account of how Abraham bought the cave of Machpelah as a burial plot for her. That narrative is then followed by the assertion that God "blessed Abraham in all things" (Genesis 24:1), which surely would be a fit conclusion to Abraham's final test.

James Kugel, Traditions of the Bible:
A Guide to the Bible as it Was at the Start of the Common Era, pp. 325-6

Abraham's test is maintaining that balancing act of being a ger ve-toshav. We too are shaped by an experience of otherness that is essential to Judaism. The challenge is how we draw on this experience for the good of stranger and citizen alike.

Shabbat shalom,
MS